And yes, the aggregators must be super-smart. It’s like when robots started replacing line workers in the auto plants. Remember the hue and cry about that? The end result is that the remaining auto workers needed to be smarter, better trained, and better paid. I think the same will be true of journalism. It’s no longer enough to report news–it must be analyzed, contextualized, and interrogated. Reporters must be ready to do that.

I, too, read Ike Pigott’s post and nearly lost my mind thinking about a world in which our news producers would be corporate storytellers — or PR professionals. But both you and Ike have done a good job describing this new media reality. There’s simply no money for journalism to do the job it once did — and there’s little chance the old institutions will return to their glory days. And unpaid bloggers can’t fill the gap.

I teach public relations at the college level, and I operate inside a journalism school. So I’m kind of at the center of the storm. But I’ve also seen enough unscrupulous behavior among PR types to know I don’t want them vetting tomorrow’s front page. As advocates for their clients, and a good many of these PR operators are licking their chops right now — like the fox in the hen house.

Can a PR person be trusted to tell a balanced, objective story? I raised this question with students in class today. Imagine if the news reports from the recent West Virginia coal-mine disaster were all prepared by Massey Energy’s PR staff. They’d be covering their butts from the headline to the final paragraph, and I doubt the truth would ever emerge. Thanks to a free an independent media, however, we’re getting both sides of the story.

So these aggregators you and Ike refer to are gonna have to be really smart, really seasoned and entirely independent. And they’ll have to be above reproach, since they are the final arbiters of truth.

I’m afraid of a system like this, but it’s already unfolding, isn’t it? And maybe that is, in part, why the public no longer trusts the media. The media don’t report all that much anymore. They just announce what’s handed them.

Thanks to Amy Mengel for pointing me to your site. I’ll be back.